Analysing bus network in bangalore to discover pertinent smaller, newer routes

Published

December 12, 2022

Modified

December 15, 2022

Context

Motivations to design with

  • Safety and access to public spaces in the city are negotiated for accessibility to the self by women 1
  • Crime Prevention Through Environment Design (CPTED) is something that can be used to redesign bustands as safety islands as opposed to the City’s initative to build safety islands 2
  • Constant life and movement should be encouraged by mixed activites. Bus Stands in India are already full of mixed activites, but can it be formally encouraged? 3
  • Feeder busses would encourage constant activity. [Need Citation]

Problem statement

  • Smaller or no Bus travel roads need to have busses running through them. Like on the inner roads of Ylk New Town.
  • What are these roads that the BMTC needs to run new routes on?
    • Are they based on population density?
    • Are they based on the number of workplaces nearby?
    • Are there a lot of long distance travellers? Do migrants stay in housing that is far away?
    • Are these roads deserted after a certain time?

Avant-garde routing

  • What if i ignore residential zoning and route public transport through them.
  • Would this not reduce private vehicle traffic possibly?

Analysing the network

relevant libs

  • https://github.com/ropensci/stplanr
  • https://luukvdmeer.github.io/sfnetworks

Algorithm as i see it

  • Load both layers (Bus routes and existing network)
  • Find intersecting roads or roads that satisfy a filter within a radius
    • Filter/Weight based on population, school density, work-place density, etc ### Interactive possibilities
  • Release this as a tool for Planning agencies?
  • Enable visual interface for easing usage for those who do not have techinical knsow-how

Secondary and Tertiary Road Network excluding trunk roads

Bus Route Network

Roads with busses running through them (black) and those without (red). Some roads are 300mts near a bus stop and can be ignored. Please note that this distance is calculated as a radial distance and not measured through the road network


  1. Paul, Tanusree. “Public Spaces and Everyday Lives: Gendered Encounters in the Metro City of Kolkata.” In Doing Gender, Doing Geography, pp. 264-283. Routledge India, 2012.↩︎

  2. Iqbal, Asifa, and Vania Ceccato. “Is CPTED useful to guide the inventory of safety in parks? A study case in Stockholm, Sweden.” International criminal justice review 26, no. 2 (2016): 150-168.↩︎

  3. Jacobs, Jane. “Jane jacobs.” The Death and Life of Great American Cities 21, no. 1 (1961): 13-25.↩︎